Observations in Lower California

By Johann Jakob, S.J. Baegert

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1952.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Release date: Nov 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9780520331921

Johann Jakob, S.J. Baegert

Enter the Author Bio(s) here.

Book preview

Observations IN LOWER CALIFORNIA

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, LTD., LONDON, ENGLAND

COPYRIGHT, 1952, BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

CALIFORNIA LIBRARY REPRINT SERIES EDITION 1979

ISBN: 0-520-03873-8

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

DESIGNED BY JOHN B. GOETZ

TRANSLATORS’ PREFACE

After almost two decades (1751-1768) spent in missionary labors among the Indians of Baja California, the Jesuit father, Johann Jakob Baegert, returned to Europe. He occupied his leisure in the last four years of his life in writing a realistic and firsthand account of the California he knew. His Nachrichten von der Amerikanischen Halbinsel Californien was first published at Mannheim, Germany, in 1771, and Father Baegert lived just long enough to make some corrections and additions for the second edition of his famous book in 1772.

The present work is the first complete English translation of the original German text. We have tried to adhere to the original as closely as possible, but many of the expressions and idioms common to eighteenthcentury German are no longer in use and we have given, as best we can, English approximations. This difficulty, together with Father Baegert’s stylistic peculiarities, we have been at pains to overcome in our attempt to present a good, readable English text. In following the German original we have studiously translated Father Baegert’s often very frank personal observations as well as his attacks on the Protestant clergy; these last, of course, based on long-forgotten controversies of little interest to the twentieth-century reader of the Nachrichten.

We wish to thank those who have generously given us their time and assistance: the late Charles Yale of Pasadena, who first suggested the translation and later aided with advice; Dr. Henry R. Wagner of San Marino; Dr. Peter M. Dunne, S.J., of the University of San Francisco; Presbítero Don José Trinidad Laris of Guadalajara, Mexico; and Père L. Münch, S.J., of Colmar, France, for assisting us in editing the book; and Messrs. Herbert Burke of Palo Alto, California, and Ray Jahn of New York City, who gave valuable help on the manuscript. We are also indebted to the courteous and helpful staff of the Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino; and to Claremont College, Claremont, California, for financial aid given us for the typing of the manuscript.

M. M. B. and C. L. B.

CONTENTS

CONTENTS

TRANSLATORS’ INTRODUCTION

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE: OF CALIFORNIA ITSELF ITS CHARACTERISTICS, CLIMATE, AND PRODUCTS

PART TWO: OF THE INHABITANTS OF CALIFORNIA

PART THREE: OF THE ARRIVAL OF THE SPANIARDS, INTRODUCTION OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH, AND OF THE MISSIONS

APPENDIX ONE FALSE REPORTS ABOUT CALIFORNIA AND THE CALIFORNIANS

APPENDIX TWO: FALSE REPORTS ABOUT THE M I S S I ONARI ES IN CALIFORNIA

JESUIT MISSIONARIES IN BAJA CALIFORNIA, 1697-1768

TRANSLATORS’ NOTES

INDEX

TRANSLATORS’ INTRODUCTION

TWO HUNDRED years have passed since Father Johann Jakob Bae- gert, S.J., arrived at Mission San Luis Gonzaga in Lower California. He remained in charge of that lonely outpost for seventeen years, leaving it when forced to do so by the royal decree of June, 1767, which expelled all members of the Society of Jesus from the possessions of the Spanish Crown in the New World.

After Father Baegert returned to Europe in April, 1769, he spent a short time in his native city Schlettstadt (Selestat), in Alsace, then went to live at the collegium at Neustadt in the Rhenish Palatinate, where he served as spiritual adviser and father confessor. He died at Neustadt, September 29, 1772.1

With the impressions of his recent experiences still fresh in his memory, Father Baegert wrote an account of his observations in Lower California entitled Nachrichten von der Amerikanischen Halbinsel Californien. This book was first published in Mannheim, Germany, in 1771; a year later a second edition appeared for which Father Baegert made some corrections and added a map of the peninsula of California, the work of another Jesuit, Father Ferdinand Konschak, California missionary and explorer.

Father Baegert was born in Schlettstadt, Alsace, on December 22,1717. The register of baptism of the Parish of St. Georges, Sélestat, shows that Joannes Jacobus Baegert, son of Michaelis Joannes Baegert, maker of gloves and leathergoods, and Maria Magdalena (Scheideck) Baegert, was baptized on December 23, 1717, in the presence of the god parents Josephus Wirth, merchant, and Anna Maria (Scheideck) Stahl.1 2

There were seven children in the Baegert family: four sons and three daughters. One son became a secular priest, one joined the Capuchin order, two entered the Society of Jesus. Two daughters also entered religious orders; the third one married.

Johann Jakob,³ youngest of the brothers, received his early schooling at Schlettstadt, and began his novitiate in Mainz, Germany, on September 17, 1736. From 1740 to 1743 he taught grammar, syntax, and poetics at the collegium at Mannheim. The next four years he spent at Molsheim where he received his training in theology. During the fourth year at Molsheim he was admitted to Holy Orders. In 1747 and 1748 Father Baegert was professor at the collegium at Hagenau, Alsace, where he also acted as president of the Young Workers’ Association (Arbeiterjugend). Late in 1748 he was assigned as missionary to the West Indies, and was sent to Bockenheim (Bouquenon), Lorraine, to await further directions.4

On February 10, 1749, Father Baegert left Bockenheim to begin the long journey to the New World. He traveled by mailcoach via Ettlingen, Augsburg, Innsbruck, and Milan to Genoa, where he arrived on March 20, 1749.⁵

Ten weeks later he left the Italian port to proceed to Puerto Santa Maria (Cadiz), Spain. The British merchant vessel which carried Father Baegert was slowed down by unfavorable weather, and instead of the usual ten days or less, it took forty-two days to reach Cadiz.

At the Hospitium de las Indias, in Cadiz, the young missionary received the information that he was to go to Mexico. This, he wrote, was welcome news, because several provinces in the temperate zone, as for instance California, New Mexico, and others belonged to the Kingdom of Mexico. Also the exchange of letters [with Europe] was much easier. 6

But the young missionary had to wait for nearly a year before he-could continue his journey to Mexico. Moorish pirates had seized several ships, and fear of capture kept most of the merchant vessels in port until about twenty ships were assembled in Cadiz. Convoyed by two warships, each armed with twenty-eight cannons, the fleet finally sailed from Puerto Santa Maria on June 16, 1750.

Father Baegert was passenger on the Condé, a trading-ship, built and owned by French merchants, but sailing under the Spanish flag while trading with Mexico. The Condé just missed being sunk at the very beginning of the voyage when it was rammed by another vessel of the fleet, the Loreto. After that incident there were no further mishaps and the journey to Mexico was accomplished in only seventy-two days. On August 23, 1750, Father Baegert landed at Vera Cruz, Mexico.

In September of the same year he completed his third year of probation at the Collegium San Gregorio in Mexico City. Two months later the Provincial, Father Johann Balthasar, of Lucerne, Switzerland, informed Baegert that he was to go almost immediately to Blessed California.⁷

From the reports of another Jesuit the reader can get a general idea of the missionary field in Lower California several years before Father Baegert was sent there. Father Lambert Hostel of Münstereifel, Germany, had journeyed in 1737 over the same road Baegert was to take thirteen years later and had done the pioneer work at Mission San Luis Gonzaga. In letters to his family, dated San Luis, September 27, 1743, Father Hostel wrote that he had been ordered to start a new mission among the Guaicura tribe. To prepare him for this task he was sent to Mission Dolores to assist the aged Father Guillén and to learn the Guaicura language, which was different from the other California languages. Father Hostel described California as a land, savage, rough, dry and unproductive throughout. The inhabitants, he wrote, were a barbarous nation, chestnut-brown, with pierced ears and noses.

A year later, in 1740, he had gathered seven hundred Guaicuras and could begin with the foundation of the new mission. Marqués Luis de Velasco had donated ten thousand Mexican pesos. This sum was sufficient to build and decorate the church and to purchase food and clothing for the missionary and his Indians. All the necessary supplies for the California missions were, at that period, brought from the Mexican mainland, carried by two ships which made the crossing once a year.

Should one or the other of these ships fail to reach our shores, we would suffer great hunger in this infertile and dry land. 8

There is a later informative letter, written by Father Hostel in 1758, which contains some facts of a general nature; although it does not deal exclusively with the work and conditions at San Luis, we thought parts of it should be included in this introduction.

Father Hostel had spent some of the intervening years trying to lay the foundation for a new mission on the west coast of the peninsula. This mission was to be called Holy Trinity. But lack of funds had forced him to abandon this project. He also mentioned that the failure to send additional missionaries to California had hindered the expansion toward the northern part of the peninsula.

In his opinion, the persistent shortage of water was the cause of all the misery in Lower California. Because of this everlasting drought the cautious Originator of all nature appears to have provided most wisely that the inhabitants of this peninsula do not increase as rapidly as the human race does elsewhere. In 1758 there were eight German and four Spanish missionaries in Lower California. Half of that number would have been enough to take care of the spiritual needs of the Indians. But the great number of different dialects spoken by the natives complicated the work. The Guaicuras, for instance, spoke four different dialects. In many families the husband spoke one language, the wife another. Older missionaries ascribed this difference to a constant influx of heathen from the north. These migrants also reported that their own country was much more fertile and more densely populated. But although the Jesuits had hoped, since the time of Father Salvatierra, to extend the chain of missions northward, they had not yet been fortunate enough to cross the border of the peninsula where it joins the continent.⁹

Father Baegert left Mexico City on November 16, 1750. A detailed account of his trip to San Luis Gonzaga¹⁰ is to be found in a letter to his brother, Stanislaus Ignaz Baegert, a Capuchin monk at Schlettstadt. It was written at San Luis Gonzaga, and dated September 11, 1752.11 He wrote that he traveled with nine other missionaries (seven Germans, one Mexican, one Spaniard). They had been supplied with mules to ride and to carry the baggage, and were accompanied by twelve drivers, both Indians and Spaniards. On December 19, the caravan entered Guadalajara. After Mexico [City]/’ Baegert wrote, Guadalajara is the best city on the whole fearful journey?⁷ The Royal Road⁷⁷ to California wound through Tepic, Rosario, Culiacán, Los Alancos (or Los Frayles). After leaving Guadalajara the missionaries traversed the present Mexican states of Nayarit, Sinaloa, and Sonora, and arrived at Yaqui, at the mouth of the Río Yaqui, south of Guaymas, on March 9,1751.

Of the long journey on muleback Father Baegert wrote: Except for Guadalajara and one or two other towns, the rest of the architecture consisted only of one-story adobe construction. The roads in general are still as they were in the year One after creation of the world. From Guadalajara to Yaqui one sees fewer villages, houses, or people than in the open country in Alsace, on half a day’s ride on the mailcoach.⁷⁷ He saw twelve or fifteen hamlets, of two or three dozen scattered huts, no larger than the pigsties in Alsace. These, and six small towns inhabited by Spaniards were all the settlements he had seen. The houses were very simply constructed and on a level with the open field. In contrast with the poor housing was such a display of female finery, especially in Culiacán and Los Frayles as can hardly be found in Mexico City, let 11 alone in Alsace. While on the road, the missionaries’ meals consisted of sun-dried beef, beans, and little pancakes made of cornmeal. Sometimes they stopped in one of the towns for six days, or even longer, and received good and free hospitality from Spanish clergymen and others who considered it an honor and were pleased to have Europeans stay with them."

After his arrival at Yaqui, Father Baegert went to visit the missions of Sonora while waiting for transportation to Lower California. This transportation was a hollow tree, approximately nine ells long, one and a half ells wide, and about as high. In this frail craft Father Baegert left Sonora on May 7, 1751, to cross the Gulf of California. He seems to have been extremely lucky in view of the difficulties encountered by others who made the same voyage before and after him. After two and a half days—sometimes rowing, sometimes sailing—he landed at Loreto, greeted with a salvo by the local garrison.

On May 26, he left Loreto accompanied by a soldier and several Indians. After a ride of thirty hours he arrived at San Luis on May 28, 1751. Here he found a tiny church which had collapsed during a recent storm, and two small huts which were to serve as his living quarters, also in need of much repair. About his parishioners he wrote that he found no more than three hundred and sixty souls, children and adults of both sexes. Several missions have even less.

When Father Baegert came to San Luis he noted that most of the Indians were naked, and a year later they still preferred to do without clothing. When the men came to the mission they covered themselves with a piece of cloth which the missionary gave them, or which they received from the Spanish soldiers in trade for tanned deerskins. They never wash themselves except when they are forced to do so, and lie practically buried in dust and ashes most of the time. And since they perspire freely, one can easily imagine what they look like afterward. Often I do not recognize even those whom I know very well. Speaking of the physical characteristics of the Indians Father Baegert wrote: I only mention the color or their skin which I promised to test because I find it so puzzling and have not been able to discover what causes it. Of course, if one wanted to say: That is how God created them/ the answer would have been found immediately. But it seems to me they are poor philosophers who go straight to the Lord with their wisdom without first trying to examine the Divine motive. It certainly could not be God’s punishment, as some have maintained, because it is the same whether my skin is light or dark. Also, if it were a punishment for paganism, why does it not turn light as soon as they become Christians? Nor can it be just a common natural phenomenon, otherwise, why would the Spaniards and others remain white as before, even after living here two hundred years?"

Every mission had several rancherías where the Indians lived when they were not required to stay at the mission; San Luis Gonzaga had three. Father Baegert explained that the rancherías were not permanent settlements, but rather temporary encampments where his parishioners met after spending the day hunting for food. He referred to them as his three brigades, one camping toward the north, one toward the east, and the third one on the west coast near the Pacific Ocean. The western brigade was the richest, because it had fish and turtles. The location of the nightly gathering place depended on available waterholes. When one storage tank went dry, the Indians moved to the next.

The language of the Guaicura Indians, Father Baegert noted, was exceedingly primitive. The translation of the whole Christian doctrine into the Guaicura idiom required only thirty-five sentences, or five handwritten pages.

Before he came to California, Baegert had often wondered why it was necessary to send priests from Europe to become the pastors of the American Indians. But once among the native Californians he understood why they could not yet become priests or scholars, or fill other responsible positions. There were several natives who had become priests in Mexico City, but they were raised, from early childhood, in Spanish families.

In his letter Baegert also spoke gratefully of Father Hostel, the founder of San Luis, who was then in charge of the neighboring Mission Dolores (Our Lady of Sorrows). Hostel aided his young colleague in every way, gave him valuable advice, sent him fresh fruit and vegetables, and came to visit him at isolated San Luis.

At Mission Dolores, and in the presence of Father Hostel, Baegert made his solemn profession in 1754.¹² The sincere devotion to his work which speaks through the lines of his letters was recognized by his co-workers and superiors. Although he never spoke about it in his Nachrichten, the catalogue of the Society of Jesus for the years 1758 and 1764 carried the following short notice: Pater Jacobus Baegert, S.J., est missionarius, fuit Superior."¹³ As Superior of the California missions he visited each establishment on the peninsula. Thus he had the opportunity of becoming well acquainted with the work and progress at the other missions, and with the characteristics of the territory.

When Baegert arrived in California in 1751 there were sixty-two soldiers stationed on the peninsula maintained by the zeal and generosity of the King of Spain for the protection of the missionaries. They were stationed wherever a rebellion might break out. I have five of them here.¹⁴ The salary of each soldier was eight hundred pesos a year. Commenting upon the expenses of maintaining and supplying the soldiers and the missions of Lower California, Father Baegert remarked: If the money, donations, real property, and interest were divided among the native families they could afford to become Knights of the Holy Roman Empire and ride around in carriages. Good luck and a long life to Ferdinand VI, and Eternal Peace for Philip of Anjou!"

The chief recreation of the missionary of San Luis Gonzaga, the most isolated location on the peninsula, was reading. There were some books at the mission and he had brought more with him from Europe. He informed his brother that he had seventy-eight volumes and pamphlets, forty-six of them were French, and nearly all on religious subjects. He asked for more books the kind one likes to read several times, because they are important companions in such complete isolation. The type of reading matter he requested shows clearly the wide scope of his interests: "the works of Huet,15 some good new French historians, Bossuet, and above all some poetry, comedies, dramas, and the like." He also would like to be informed of new developments in the scientific world, and recent publications about the Church and theology, and asked for a history of Jansenism.

Father Baegert confides in his letter that the life of a missionary, at least in California, was far different from what he had thought it to be when he lived in Alsace. In Europe it was generally assumed that a missionary lived in a hollow tree, or in a green bower, slept on tigerskins, walked barefooted, the pilgrim’s staff in hand, and lived exclusively on roots. The books he had consulted before he left home proved to be full of misinformation. He had believed an established mission was an organized, settled, and civilized group of natives, wearing clothes, living in a community of small homes, working at agriculture, and other necessary trades. He had thought that a missionary, who was ordered to start a new mission, could complete a decent little village in a few years. All this was far from the truth. Nor was he the only one who found that the reality had little in common with the earlier dreams and descriptions. Nearly all missionaries in California had been equally duped. But this, he added was really no one’s fault, because who, in Europe, would ever look for a land like California on the face of the globe?

Since he left his native soil, however, he was in good spirits and content with his lot; he had never been sick or melancholy for an hour. Health is necessary here, and melancholy is useless.

He concluded his report about the Indians, their way of life and struggle for existence with the words: "Yet this should not deter anyone in Europe from seeking to serve in American missions. Just because the Indians are less numerous, they must not be left helpless. The more forsaken a people is, the more miserable the land it lives on, the more worthy it is of compassion: so it would not come from the rain into the brook, from a temporal hell to an eternal one. I confess that up to now I have felt no regrets, nor do I see how I should ever have any. I am happy, especially because I realize daily more and more how many who are working in Europe may appear very important, but they achieve nothing, neither for themselves nor for others. Self-love has absolutely no value here?

Reports

from the

American Peninsula

California

With a

twofold

cAppendix sf False Reports

Written

by a

Priest øf the Society of Jesus

Who Has Lived There in the

Years Past

With Permission of the Superiors

Mannheim

Printed by the Electoral Court and Academy Press

1772

1 Jahreskatalog der oberrhein. Prov. Totenverzeichnis, p. 34.

2 The record of baptism was obtained through the courtesy of Mr. P. Adam, of the Bibliothèque et Archives de Selestat, France.

3 Probably in honor of his admired uncle, Father Jakob Baegert, S.J., of Kaysersberg, Alsace.

4 From the work of Dr. J. Gass, Elscissische Jesuiten (Strassburg, Le Roux, 1918), pp. 43-79.

5 Letter written by Pater Jacobi Begert [Latin spelling], Selestadiensis Soc. Jesu, Missionarii to his brother Father Georg Baegert, S.J., Genoa, March 29, 1749.

6 Letter written by Father Baegert to his brother, Puerto Santa Maria, Spain, August 11,1749.

7 Letter written by Father Baegert to his brother, Mexico City, October 21, 1750.

8 Father Hostel’s letters were published in Der Neue Welt-Bott, Allerhand so Lehr- als Geistreiche Brief-Schrifften und Reis-Beschreibungen von denen Missionariis der Gesellschaft Jesu (5 vols., 40 parts, Augsburg and Graz, 1642—1758). Photostat copies of these letters were obtained through the Reverend Peter M. Dunne, S.J.

9 Ibid.

10 Mission San Luis Gonzaga was founded by Father Hostel, later administered by Father Baegert. It ended its existence as a mission in 1768, shortly after the expulsion of the Jesuits from Lower California. On August 20, 1768, Don José de Galvez sent the Guaicura Indians of San Luis Gonzaga to Mission Todos Santos. On April 24, 1769, he gave the mission "with its house, church, lands, waters and pastures’⁷ in perpetuity to the retired Spanish soldier Felipe Romero. But Señor Romero thought the place too lonely and isolated, and returned the property almost immediately in exchange for a land grant in San José del Cabo. San Luis was then given to Señor Pablo de la Toba, whose descendants held it until comparatively recent years. The present owner of the Rancho San Luis Gonzaga is Señor Don Augustin Arreola of La Paz, Baja California. (Historic dates from Pablo L. Martinez’ Efemérides Californianasf Mexico, D.F., 1950.)

11 From Brief eines Elsässers an seinen Bruder in Schlettstadt, Patriotischer Elsässer (Strassburg and Colmar, 1777). This letter was addressed to Father Stanislaus Baegert, dated San Luis, September 11, 1752. Father Stanislaus noted at the bottom of the letter that it arrived in Schlettstadt on September 18, 1753.

12 The copy of Father Baegert’s solemn profession was obtained from the Archives of the Society of Jesus, in Rome, through the courtesy of the Reverend Josef Teschitei, S.J. Ego Iacobus Begert Professionem facio, et promitto Omnipotenti Deo, coram ejus Virgine Matre, et universa Coelesti curia, ac omnibus circum- stantibus; et tibi Reverendo Patri Lamberto Hostell Visitatori vice Propositi Generalis Societatis lesu, et Sucessorum ejus, locum Dei tenenti; perpetuam Paupertatem, Castitatem et Obedientiam; et Secundum earn peculiarem curam circa puerorum eruditionem, juxta formam vivendi, in litteris Apostolicis Societatis lesu, et en ejus constitutionibus contentam.

Insuper promitto Specialem Obedientiam Summo Pontificii circa missiones; pro ut in eisdem litteris Apostolicis et Constitutionibus continetur. in Missione a Doloribus B. M. V. in California. Die decima quinta Augusti, Anno Millisimo Septingentésimo Quinquagesimo quarto in Ecclesia dictae Missionis Sanctatis lesu.

IHS

Jacobus Begert

(rubric)

13 ¹³ Carta Anua, 1768 and 1764 (Mex. 8, fol. 135, n. 674; fol. 198, n. 579).

14 ¹⁴ Brief eines Elsässers an seinen Bruder in Schlettstadt, Patriotische Elsässer, 1777.

15 Pierre Daniel Huet, Bishop of Avranches, 1691; editor of Origen’s Commentaries and well known for his writings on Descartes.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 5

PART 1: : Of California Itself, Its Characteristics, Climate, and Products

CHAPTER